@PALMER_ENT: "16 Dec 2004
The Godfather of Soul, 71, James Brown, had prostate cancer surgery
yesterday, said Simone Smalls, his publicist. The operation was a
success, Smalls said. Smalls added that James Brown is expected to make
a full recovery. 
James Brown had his operation at Midtown Urology Surgical Center,
Atlanta, USA. 
Brown revealed last week that he had prostate cancer. 
James Brown was born in Barnwell, South Carolina, as an only child in
1933. His father was a filling station attendant. When James was four,
his parents separated and he grew up in the brothel of his aunt, a poor
woman in Augusta, Georgia. Brown left school in the seventh grade. He
picked cotton, was a shoe-shine boy, washed cars and dishes and swept
out stores. 
At the age of 16, he took part in an armed robbery and was caught
breaking into a car. James was sentenced to eight to sixteen years' hard
labor. He served a short period in the county jail before being
transferred to juvenile work farms. He spent three years in a community
home. 
Afterwards, he tried to work as a boxer. His ambitions to make a career
as a baseball pitcher ended with a leg injury. He had been a pitcher for
the prison team and that's where he first met Bobby Byrd who played
against him in a local game. James Brown started to work with pianist
Bobby Byrd in bars and clubs in Toccoa, Georgia. Little Richard's
manager Clint Brantley took him under contract and sent him to the
Twospot Nightclub in Macon, Georgia. 
During the day, he worked at Lawson's Motor Company in town, in the
evenings, he worked as a drummer and organ player in the club's house
band which accompanied Bill Johnson, the Four Steps of Rhythm and the
Gospel Starlighters. At that time, they switched from gospel to r&b
which was then in the air. Later, James Brown became a member of Bobby
Byrd's gospel group Three Swanees which became the Swanee Quintet and
later the Swanees. In 1955, the singer Sylvester Keels and the guitarist
Nafloyd Scott where part of the group. 
The band toured Georgia and developed into the Famous Flames, a black
music revue in which all members had at least to play two instruments
and to act as dancers and singers. In 1956, James Brown took over the
direction of the Famous Flames which consisted of Keels and Scott, but
also Johnny Terry and Nashpendle Knox (both vocals), Wilbert Smith and
Ray Felder (both saxophone), Clarence Mack (bass) and Edison Gore
(drums)=85=85 
knowledge is power - growing old is mandatory - growing wise is optional  =
"Many more men die with prostate cancer than of it. Growing old is
invariably fatal. Prostate cancer is only sometimes so."
<url>"
    @jksinrod: "news:<email_address>
<quote>
  I heard he screamed out.... WOW I FEEL GOOD......
JK Sinrod
Sinrod Stained Glass Studios
<url>
Coney Island Memories
<url>"
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